Striking a blow against fascism with commentary on current events, finance, economics, politics, music, art, culture and how to deal with our economic lives being bartered away by the elites who have our financial future all figured out: We'll be paying off their debts forever.

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"We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth." - Sydney Schanberg

"The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft, / And gathering swallows twitter in the skies." - John Keats

"It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen ... The world will present itself to you for its unmasking." - Franz Kafka

"“We of the craft are all crazy,” wrote Lord Byron about himself and his fellow poets. “Some are affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched.”"

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

"In my lifetime we've gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. If this is evolution, I believe within twelve years we'll be voting for plants." - Lewis Black

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." – George Orwell

Senator Frank Church in 1975 chaired the Senate Hearings on the FBI’s Cointelpro operation, which spied upon and attempted to infiltrate, disrupt and discredit the peace movement. . . "if a dictator ever took over, (the NSA) could enable to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back. . . . That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. . . . I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."

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Conservative Animus

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Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound argument as to why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will, why they should not be allowed to govern themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty, agency, the prerogative of the elite.

Current Readers

Politicus USA on GOP Fascism

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The entire GOP apparatus is slipping toward fascism and millions of Americans have been indoctrinated to believe that the Bible none of them have read takes precedence over the Constitution none of them have read.

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Waiting for Grand Dad

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Eco Farm Shitakes, Squash, Kale - Cindi, Nicole & Eddie

Ukraine Disinformation Battle: Little Green Men, Hamsters and the Fog of War

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There has always been a gap in how media on both sides of the former Iron Curtain have reported world events, and it’s growing as the crisis in Ukraine escalates. It has become increasingly difficult to obtain reliable information from any side — west, east, or further east — about what is going on in Eastern Ukraine.
While powerful propaganda machines fill the public space with smoke and mirrors, one of the few facts that can be positively established in Eastern Ukraine is that the body count is steadily growing: a testament of just how easy it is for self-interested foreign powers to start, either intentionally or recklessly, a civil war in the heart of Europe. Continuing coverage is available at this link and this link.

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Red Roots Farm - Kristen & Jason - No Sprays/Delicious Veggies!

Fukushima, Japan Disaster Worsens and Spreads

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While the American reactor industry continues to suck billions of dollars from the public treasury, its allies in the corporate media seem increasingly hesitant to cover the news of post-Fukushima Japan. Continuing coverage is available at this link, this link, and this link.

My Blog Fights Climate Change

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Animal Rescue - Click Everyday!

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Paul Krugman:

I don’t think many people grasp just how raw, how explicit, the corruption of our institutions has become.

Yesterday I had a conversation with someone who, like me, spent most of the Bush years as a voice in the wilderness. And he pointed out something remarkable: although those of us who said the obvious — that the Bush administration was fundamentally monstrous — were ridiculed by all the respectable people at the time, at this point our narrative has become everyone’s narrative.

Cirze's World

Paul Craig Roberts:

_________________ US Media
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"Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda."

"The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media.

Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives — not by journalists — whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers.

Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home."

_________________ War On Terror
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Roberts asked "Is the War on Terror a Hoax", and claims it has "killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims in six countries". Roberts called the attacks "naked aggression" on civilian populations and infrastructure which constitute war crimes.

_________________ Republican Party
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Roberts is seriously dismayed by what he considers the Republican Party's disregard for the U.S. Constitution. He has even voiced his regret that he ever worked for it, avowing that, had he known what it would become, he would never have contributed to the Reagan Revolution.

_________________ American Democracy and Oligarchy
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Roberts has been increasingly critical of what he deems as the lessening of democracy in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:

"The west prides itself that it is the standard for the world, that it is a democracy. But nowhere do you see democratic outcomes: not in Greece, not in Ireland, not in the UK, not here, the outcomes are always to punish the innocent and reward the guilty.

And that's what the Greeks are in the streets protesting. We see this all over the west. There is no democracy, there are oligarchies, some of these smaller European countries are not even run by their own governments, they are run by Wall Street... There is probably more democracy in China than there is in the west.

Revolution is the only answer... We are confronted with a curious situation. Throughout the west we think we have democracy, we hold ourselves up high, we demonize China, we talk about the mafia state of Russia, we talk about the Arabs and so on, but where is the democracy here?"

_________________ Farewell Speech
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"Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It,"

Roberts effectively announced his journalistic retirement. The article, published at Counterpunch.org, begins:

"There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest."

It proceeds to a bitter chronicle of the demise of American intellectual integrity, particularly that of financial journalists and economists. These have been thoroughly corrupted by monetary inducements to misrepresent and ignore what has been, in effect, the systematic dismantling of the nation's productive life, in the name of globalization.

He holds the members of his own journalistic profession largely responsible for abetting relentless outsourcing of American industry, thereby gutting the American middle class and effectively dooming the nation's future.

He describes his own ostracism from mainstream media access, the consequence of his relentless and unflinching criticism of the demolition process over the past decade. His column ends, "The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off."

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Cirze's World

Liberal?

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal."

John F. Kennedy, 1960

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Citizen's United

"[T]his Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy."

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev now faces the sentencing phase of his trial, even with some crucial questions about the case left unanswered.

We asked each member of our Boston Marathon Bombing reporting team to share their personal experience or perspective on one aspect of the bombing or the trial. Stay tuned for more personal perspectives like this as the trial concludes.

It took a jury just over 11 hours to find Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of 30 counts in connection with the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Federal prosecutors argued Tsarnaev, 21, deliberately “shredded the bodies” of his victims and waged violent jihad to “punish Americans.”

Assistant US Attorney Aloke Chakravarty portrayed Tsarnaev as a heartless terrorist who, along with his brother Tamerlan, carried out the April 2013 attacks that killed three and injured 264 others.

But while evidence of Tsarnaev’s culpability — including an admission of guilt from his own defense team — virtually guaranteed a guilty verdict, that wasn’t enough to stop prosecutors from twisting important facts to suit their own agenda.

Referencing “bomb-making” paraphernalia seized from Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s apartment, Chakravarty told the court that, “there is evidence, at least in part, that the bombs were built at 410 Norfolk Street.”

What the jury didn’t know is that in May 2014, prosecutors said they had no evidence the bombs were constructed at Norfolk Street, and in October 2014, a year-and-a-half after the bombings, the FBI said it still had no idea where the bombs were built, or who actually built them.

The government’s own witness, FBI explosives expert David McCollum, testified he could not determine where the bombs were constructed — a fact seemingly forgotten by Chakravarty during closing arguments Monday.

And when prosecutors tried to explain away the total lack of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s fingerprints on the ‘bomb making’ materials, they simply tossed aside the pressing issue of who really constructed the marathon bombs and where:

“Inspire magazine [an Al Qaeda publication] advises to wear gloves when building bombs — it could mean the defendant was wearing gloves,” said Chakravarty. “But more important than who built the bombs is how they used the things.”

While no one was expecting anything other than a guilty verdict for Tsarnaev, the question of who built the bombs and where is a salient one. It should concern anyone who would seek to prevent future bombings.

In the rush to condemn Dzhokhar to death, why is the government seemingly content to ignore evidence that might point to the involvement of others in the planning and execution of the attack? What is their overall objective here?

For context, see this article in the "Christian Science Monitor," on a recent case in which the FBI lured an unstable young man into a bomb plot and then practically handed him a bomb — albeit one that, at least in that case, was inert. This follows a long history of the FBI “helping” those expressing anger at the US to fulfill their wildest fantasies of revenge, before busting them. That the FBI was in contact with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the now-dead elder brother of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, prior to the Boston bombings, obviously deserves much more attention given the uncertain provenance of the bombs themselves.

As the Fed bumbles blindly toward increasingly severe no-growth policies (but, hey, why would we want more growth anyway - aren't we reducing our carbon footprint adequately with our inability to feed and house our population?), we should feel free to discuss a past anomalous occurrence (amazingly largely undiscussed occurrence) in the stock market which probably made those playing the game sit up and take notice (and sell sell sell). Looking at the current charts (refer to April 10, 2015 blogpost), we see their logical culmination.

You know times are weird on Wall Street when JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon devotes a good chunk of his shareholder letter, released yesterday, to fretting about whether there will be enough Treasury notes to go around in a safe haven stampede during the next crisis.

Dimon writes that “In a crisis, everyone rushes into Treasuries to protect themselves. In the last crisis, many investors sold risky assets and added more than $2 trillion to their ownership of Treasuries (by buying Treasuries or government money market funds). This will be even more true in the next crisis. But it seems to us that there is a greatly reduced supply of Treasuries to go around – in effect, there may be a shortage of all forms of good collateral.”

To underscore his point, Dimon invoked the tumult in the Treasury market on October 15, 2014, writing that on that day “Treasury securities moved 40 basis points, statistically 7 to 8 standard deviations – an unprecedented move – an event that is supposed to happen only once in every 3 billion years or so ….”

Not to put too fine a point on it but the Homo Sapiens species to which most of us belong (we can’t be positive about some traders on Wall Street) has only existed for about 100,000 years, making the “3 billion year” reference a bit over the top. Nonetheless, the move in the 10-year U.S. Treasury note on October 15, 2014 was extraordinary and has been dubbed a Flash Crash in Treasury yields by those who have taken a serious look at the day’s trading.

The day began with a lot of crowded trades betting on an improving economy and a stronger dollar. Then came the economic data releases showing a less than rosy picture. The Commerce Department reported a decline in retail sales of 0.3 percent for September; the Producer Price Index came in at a decline of 0.1 percent and the Empire State Manufacturing Survey reported that the “general business conditions index fell twenty-one points to 6.2, signaling that the pace of growth slowed significantly from last month.”

Market data firm, Nanex, reported that between 9:33 and 9:45 a.m. on the morning of October 15, 2014, “liquidity evaporated in Treasury futures and prices skyrocketed (causing yields to plummet). Five minutes later, prices returned to 9:33 [a.m.] levels.” Nanex goes on to say that “Trading activity was enormous, sending trade counts for the entire day to record highs — exceeding that of the Lehman collapse, the financial crisis and the August 2011 downgrade of U.S. debt.”

According to an analysis by Bloomberg News, “Yields on the 10-year note tumbled 0.34 percentage points to a low of 1.86 percent that day, with most of that drop occurring in a 10-minute span from 9:30 a.m. in New York, before ending the day at 2.14 percent.” Bloomberg reports that “Adjusted for current yield levels, which are close to historical lows, the magnitude of the intraday decline that day has been exceeded only once in the past half-century…”

The New York Fed has a Treasury Market Practices Group (TMPG) composed of personnel from the financial industry and the New York Fed. Minutes from its meeting on October 16, 2014, the day after the Flash Crash in Treasury yields, revealed the following:

“Regarding the events of October 15, members discussed a number of possible drivers that may have contributed to the large price swings and heightened volatility observed that day. Possible drivers discussed included large scale repositioning by leveraged investors, activities of electronic trading algorithms, and dealer balance sheet and risk management constraints. Members concluded that more time would be needed to fully understand the day’s events.

“The TMPG then received an update from a working group formed to conduct a review of high-speed electronic trading in TMPG covered markets. Working group members discussed potential risks of high-speed electronic trading identified by the group, such as operational risks to market participants and risks to broader market function. The TMPG suggested that the working group aim to better understand the events of October 15 and evaluate whether the events would be an appropriate case study for the TMPG’s potential white paper on high-speed electronic trading in TMPG covered markets.”

One of the key concerns floating around Wall Street is that the Federal Reserve itself may be a source of liquidity stresses in the Treasury market place. As a result of its previous, massive Quantitative Easing (QE) programs, it’s sitting with $2.4 trillion in Treasury securities on its balance sheet as of its report dated April 2, 2015. Keeping that supply out of the marketplace is part of the Fed’s monetary policy strategy to keep interest rates low and boost economic activity. However, in times of stress when trillion dollar banks and billion dollar hedge funds want to instantly flip out of junk bond ETFs, stocks and other riskier assets and into the safe haven of U.S. Treasuries, there may not be enough supply to go around given the trillions of dollars in high risk assets that now dominate the globe.

As of 9:55 a.m. this morning, the 10-year Treasury note is trading at a yield of 1.91 percent. From the date of the 1929 crash throughout the Great Depression years of the 1930s, the 10-year Treasury note never dropped below 2 percent. In July of 2012, the 10-year Treasury set an all-time historic low of 1.38 percent during intense worries over Europe’s sovereign debt problems. Should there be a future panic in the next few years that pushes investors out of risky trades, we could easily set a new record low below 1 percent.

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More about that uniquely American (with very little verifiable evidence) show trial?

Alleged Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was convicted not on the basis of any evidence but by a jury intimidated by Tsarnaev’s prior conviction in the media by statements made by authorities precisely for the purpose of preventing a trial based on evidence. The jurors knew that the failure to convict would make them pariahs among their brainwashed families, friends, and communities. In former times when the US had the rule of law, the irresponsible statements by public officials repeated endlessly in the media would have likely resulted in the court dismissing the case on the grounds that public authorities had made a fair trial impossible.

Tsarnaev’s attorney knew that evidence would play no role in the case and focused on trying to save Dzhokhar from a death sentence by blaming the older brother who was killed by police. Perhaps Dzhokhar’s attorney remembered what happened to attorney Lynne Stewart who was sentenced to prison for representing a client for whom the government only wanted a pro forma representation.

West Point graduate and former US Army officer Joachim Hagopian describes the orchestration and avoidance of evidence that delivered the mandatory conviction . . . .

A fair trial is among the many victims murdered by Washington in the 21st century._ _ _ _ _ _ _

With the official government narrative of the 9/11 attack filled with a plethora of lies that have since been subsequently exposed, the next biggest “war on terror” event on US soil that the feds failed to stop was the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. And now the lone living suspect from that horrific crime that killed three people, left 17 limbless and injured 264 victims (though that number’s been accused of being purposely inflated,) has now been found guilty of all 30 counts after the jury’s 11 hour deliberation earlier this week. As we mark the second anniversary of this tragic event and the second and final phase of the trial beginning on Monday that will decide the fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev - whether he’ll live out the rest of his life in prison or be put to death, a critical review of preceding events and developments surrounding his high profile, extremely significant case seems both timely and much needed.

Despite Dzhokhar Tsarnaev pleading not guilty to the 30 counts (17 carrying the death penalty) he was charged within a week after the April 15th bombings last year, his lead defense attorney Judy Clark several days ago conceded to the jury that her client was guilty in her closing argument. Apparently blaming the dead brother whose due process was denied became Dzhokhar’s only defense strategy. The defense team insisted that he was coerced and bullied by his older brother into committing alleged acts of terrorism. Considering no real solid proof other than photos placing Dzhokhar and older brother Tamerlan both wearing backpacks at the scene of the crime where the two bombs exploded was even presented at the trial, no justice for either the Tsarnaevs nor the many victims can possibly come from this guilty verdict.

If the purpose of the US judicial system in criminal trials is to ensure that all factual evidence surrounding an alleged crime or crimes be accurately and fairly presented so that the jurors can properly assess the best semblance of the truth as presented by both prosecution and defense in order for the jury to adjudicate and decide a defendant’s true guilt or innocence, this trial was a complete travesty of justice. And if a basic tenet of the justice system in the United States holds that a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty, then again this verdict outcome is an obscene farce and a shameful joke exposing America’s justice system for its gross injustice.

Just as the 9/11 Commission failed to adequately address and answer dozens of questions that its official narrative failed to deliver, and years earlier the Warren Commission failed JFK and America, so does the prosecution’s case of evidence of Tsarnaev’s guilt fail to be convincing, much less provide definitive and unequivocal proof that the 21-year old Chechen American with his brother committed the Boston Marathon crimes.

And the prime reason why is that so much of the testimony and so called evidence was based on the FBI and local law enforcement’s dishonest versions of events that were based near exclusively on the government’s one star witness’s faulty, changeable, non-credible accounting of events. The identity of this sole witness that even through the trial was never revealed, testified in court by his fake name “Danny.” Later it was learned that Danny’s real name was Dun Meng. A Chinese national finishing his masters at Northeastern University in engineering, during his alleged carjacking, Meng claimed that the deceased brother Tamerlan confessed that he and his younger brother were responsible for both the Marathon bombings as well as the murder of the MIT campus policeman.

Throughout his trial testimony, the key witness maintained constant eye contact with what seemed almost like his handler, Northeastern University criminology professor James Fox. Fox clearly acted as Meng’s coach and gatekeeper ensuring that Fox would be present in a tentative interview with WhoWhatWhy journalist Russ Baker though it turned out Fox made sure it never happened. In a television interview with the immigrant gas station attendant that Meng ran to when he escaped, it was Fox once again guarding his henhouse, making sure the attendant stayed on script, an odd role for a criminology professor. But in a case where the entire story was badly scripted by the feds, necessitating absolute control over all outgoing information to the public, Professor Fox was merely playing his part. And that part also included state propagandist. Samplings from articles he wrote for the Boston Globe, starting with his response to the difficulty of finding a cemetery that would accept Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body, he wrote:

I truly understand and appreciate why many folks want nothing to do with the corpse of a man who apparently hated America and our way of life… If and when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were scheduled to die, his name and image would be plastered all over the news, further increasing his undeserved celebrity in the minds of those on the political fringe who view our government as evil and corrupt… The bombing seems to have been an attack against American life, not specifically American lives. Those killed and injured were unfortunate surrogates of the intended target: America and the freedoms we enjoy.

When the strength of the state’s evidence to convict and execute a man relies solely on one incognito witness whose tightly controlled testimony repeatedly kept changing depending on whom he talked to, how can a guilty verdict be considered legitimate or fair? Virtually the entire guilt or innocence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rested on what this one alleged witness claimed, yet he kept changing his story on numerous occasions despite his gatekeeper’s best intentions.

The other so called incriminating evidence used against Dzhokhar was a bogus, totally unbelievable written confession that he is purported to have written in the dark on the inside wall of the boat he was hiding out in. Dzhokhar was supposedly laying there nearly bleeding to death from the alleged gunshot exchange with police a few hours earlier. Yet on video footage the young man is seen emerging unassisted from the boat appearing bloodless and uninjured only to be admitted minutes later to the emergency hospital room in critical condition suffering from a deeply sliced neck wound that prevented him from speaking for weeks. How did that happen while in police custody? And that came after a swarm of police shot a slew of bullet holes into the boat while Tsarnaev supposedly lay there gravely injured.

Just as the French authorities made sure that no prisoners were allowed to be taken alive in the alleged Hebdo Paris crime spree in January, nor in Osama bin Laden’s alleged execution in Pakistan in 2011, nor in the JFK assassination, that barrage of gunfire into that boat by FBI and/or local police was also intended to kill the only suspect. That way the government’s complicity, criminal involvement and subsequent cover-up would have conveniently been eliminated - wiped clean of any messy complications in the form of a suspect trial and the truth inadvertently leaking out. So the US government proceeds with a pseudo-trial that kept the defendant silent and unable to ever present his side of the story. In effect, he may as well have been silenced by the bullets intended to kill him.

Another of the dozens of discrepancies in this case is over how and when older brother Tamerlan actually died. A series of photos of a naked and handcuffed Tamerlan were taken as the police placed him into custody and inside a patrol car. Both CNN and the Boston Globe reported that Tamerlan was alive in police custody. Yet the feds’ official line was that after the brothers robbed a 7-Eleven, Tamerlan was killed in the Watertown shootout with the police while Dzhokhar backed the car over him as he made his temporary getaway. It can only be one or the other. The photos don’t lie. Cops do.

For so many incredulous inconsistencies to actually be accepted as convincing “evidence” while so many discrepant facts directly contradict state evidence, and then the “no questions asked” defense and mainstream media throughout the trial passively swallowing it hook, line and sinker in its rush to convict Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (trial being over in less than a month with 95 witnesses) is utterly preposterous and again, a complete and total miscarriage of justice.

But then the propaganda lies built into this case from the start were designed to convict the brothers as the patsy fall guys all along. Going back to the JFK assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald, every false flag operation has its unwitting stooges who are used by the feds as props to take the sole blame.

From President Obama to the FBI to their propagandist presstitutes, they were all publicly weighing in their guilty verdicts no sooner than the release of the photos that within days of the bombings identified the two brothers as the only prime suspects, thus prejudicing the entire case, effectively swaying Americans into believing that the one suspect still alive was guilty long before his trial ever began. And we know based on both Obama and the FBI’s track records that they both are constantly lying through their teeth and obviously cannot be trusted.

The overwhelming majority of American citizens per last August's CNN poll, an all-time high of 87%, of Americans simply do not trust their own government, knowing that they are constantly being lied to every day. And with so many blatant holes in the state’s case, anyone half aware and informed of what’s been allowed to go down in the Boston Marathon bombings case would be near 100% certain that the government is once again producing an over-the-top false narrative designed to hide its own criminality. But then the US federal government’s become a militarized dictatorship, part of an international crime cabal that uses state propaganda as effectively as the Nazis ever did.

All kinds of unexplained anomalies are rampant throughout this case. A number of paid mercenaries from Craft International, a paramilitary private security contractor out of Texas (not unlike notorious Blackwater/aka Xe/aka Academi) were also spotted in photos wearing those same black colored government-issued-like backpacks.

The question of whether any of them laid their backpack and its contents on the ground never quite came up in the trial. Apparently these guys were part of a Homeland Security training exercise that just happened to be training at the exact same time and place as the so called terrorists on that Boston Marathon day. Think about those odds, kind of like America’s entire national air defense on 9/11 conveniently being absent, purposely diverted to training exercises in the Atlantic just so the 9/11 false flag could be executed as planned. In Boston the unmistakable heavy presence of the military and special ops personnel assembled en-masse instantly on the scene after the marathon explosions is yet another giveaway indicating that the feds had something if not everything to do with this tragedy.

Clearly it was a training exercise alright, Bostonians was used as a guinea pig litmus test for assessing how a large US urban population of over a million people would react to a first practice, simulation dry-run of martial law in America, conveniently prepping us for what’s to come. The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act upheld by the US Supreme Court a year ago now permits the US military to invade our homes without warrant, arrest us without charges, and imprison us indefinitely without trial, legal representation or due process. After the marathon bombings the feds’ stand down order issued over an expansive, densely populated metropolitan area to remain in their homes while a massive police state-army dressed and armed for war against its own people without warrants entered thousands of homes with automatic weapons drawn in the largest, monster-scale manhunt in US history searching for one teenager from a family with whom the feds were already very familiar.

Perhaps the most respected independent news team that’s been diligently investigating the Boston Marathon bombings the last two years – WhoWhatWhy – has asserted that older brother Tamerlan was most likely an FBI informant. Through court motions last year Dzhokhar’s defense team submitted evidence that the FBI had approached the older Tsarnaev brother in an effort to recruit him to spy on his fellow Boston Chechen and Muslim community. The US intel community has a verifiably long history both here and around the globe of seeking out troubled youth and young people like the Tsarnaevs as informants in its worldwide clandestine operations.

The FBI and CIA’s common misuse of paying informants to entrap others globally into joining plots of terrorism was well documented in researcher-author Trevor Aaronson’s book The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. Between 9/11 and 2011 he confirmed that 508 defendants were recruited by informants paid up to $100,000 in multiple sting operations. In fact, in all but only three high profile cases were the FBI and their informants not involved. Again, this demonstrates that the US government’s calling card around the world reads “Terrorism-R-US,” just another M.O. for squandering hard earned taxpayer dollars to keep its invented “war on terror” very much ongoing and alive forever.

What seems most probable are efforts by the FBI to recruit Tamerlan to become a snitch in the neocons’ self-serving war on terror. Yet this piece of crucial evidence has been purposely withheld from all court proceedings and MSM’s dubious, half-ass coverage. 26-year old Tamerlin was a down on his luck, unemployed boxer whose dream of Olympic gold had been shattered, married to a nurse’s aide working 60 hours a week to make ends meet. Yet WhoWhatWhy states that just two days prior to the bombings, Tamerlan could afford sending his mother in Russia $900 cash along with paying for the backpacks (or were they government issued?), ammunition and bomb-making materials. Yet this critical piece of information was also prohibited from further inquiry during the trial.

Of course the FBI predictably denied any Tsarnaev solicitation to become an informant. Prior to last month’s trial, the US Circuit Court judge presiding over the case explicitly ordered that the brother’s involvement with FBI not be allowed to enter his courtroom during the trial. It remains to be seen if Judge George A. O’Toole will permit the defense to present this critical information during the upcoming sentencing phase. Because the government has so much to hide and has failed to address so many discrepancies in the case for obvious high stakes reasons, it probably won’t be included, which of course only reinforces what many of us already know, that this trial is but a sham for police state propaganda and truth suppression.

Of all the receipts for typical everyday items purchased, the only receipts found in Tamerlan’s pockets were receipts for his self-incriminating bomb-making materials. That’s almost like finding the unblemished passport belonging to the lead 9/11 box-cutter a couple blocks from the towers’ ashes the day after, or the Hebdo gunman’s wallet with ID left carelessly on purpose in the cab so those terrorists could instantly be identified. This calling card pattern smacks of yet another inside job rendition with the same shabby, grubby fed fingerprints carelessly smudged all over it.

Another inconsistent weakness in the prosecution’s case was the sophistication required for making the “pressure-cooker” bombs used at the marathon. Supposedly Tamerlan learned off an al Qaeda internet website where the article’s authors mention the directions being beyond the scope of a novice. Throughout the trial, the prosecution team would go back and forth promoting the notion of the bombs’ complexity whenever it served their purpose. For example, as the reason used to justify the FBI interrogating Dzhokhar for two days straight without reading him his Miranda rights, the FBI suspected that others were also involved, partially based on the bombs seeming more than homemade-like. Yet whenever it would come up as a reason to mitigate seeking the death penalty, the notion of lone wolves would get drummed home every time.

The traces of bomb materials in Tamerlan’s apartment underwent the same flip floppy logic as a transparent prosecution ploy used to convict the younger brother. Three times the feds changed their tune on traces of the bomb material being found in the apartment and whether the brothers had outside help or not. These discrepancies consistently went unchallenged by the defense during the trial as if pre-scripted to let the shady government off the hook in its back and forth rendition of “truth,” protecting the feds’ cover-up lies of discrepancy in order to allow the US government to get away with its incriminating part.

The one thread of unfailing consistency throughout this entire two year story is the constant inconsistencies and the countless conspicuously avoided bottom line questions that smack of inside cover-up. Initially the Tsarnaevs were not the suspects. Apparently once the photos of the Tsarnaev brothers at the Boston Marathon were made public asking for help in identifying their names, overheard on a Boston police scanner and then scooped up immediately by social media network sources, the names Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Trapathi were erroneously identified as the suspects.

The fact that the FBI knew who the two men in those photos were because they had previous dealings with them enough to place them on a no fly list, the FBI willfully lied to America pretending it needed the public’s assistance to identify them. And then the police put out false names of innocent people as suspects. Mike Mulugeta reportedly was shot dead though any actual accounts confirming his death are completely absent.

However, East Indian American and Brown University student Sunil Trapathi who had been reported missing since mid-March was found floating face down in pond water in Providence, Rhode Island about a week after the Marathon explosions. What little information about his suspicious death was released through his family and the question of whether the death resulted from foul play is still largely unknown.

More bogus, planted propaganda against the brothers shortly after they were identified as the prime suspects was the FBI claim linking them to the triple murder case in Waltham, Massachusetts that took place on September 11th, 2011. Only during the trial did it come out that there existed absolutely no evidence that Tamerlan was involved. Yet the systematic damage of misinformation supporting the brothers’ guilt was already done, ensuring that in the court of public opinion the Tsarnaevs were guilty as charged right from the get-go.

Here the Tsarnaev brothers were supposedly on a no-fly list acting as more evidence supporting prior contact with intelligence agencies, yet Tamerlan was permitted to fly to known terrorist hotbed Chechnya and neighboring Dagestan from January 21, 2012 to July 17, 2012. His family members insist he spent his entire time with family, among them a distant cousin who heads a non-violent organization critical of Western policies toward Islam. Yet his visit was used by prosecution as so called evidence that the older brother was “radicalized” there and came home an inspired terrorist seeking revenge on America.

A "New York Times" article dated April 20, 2013 suggests that Tamerlan was first approached by the FBI in January 2011 after a return trip from Russia. Russian intelligence services that monitored phone calls in Chechnya warned the FBI in March 2011 that Tamerlan was becoming a potential threat. Thus two plus years well in advance of the bombings, the FBI was already cognizant of Tamerlan’s extremist leaning activities. Yet the FBI allowed him to travel yet again to Russia despite being on a no fly list and less than nine months after his return from that final trip abroad, the Boston Marathon bombings occurred. This damning piece of government evidence makes the feds minimally guilty of criminal gross negligence if not actually a criminal accomplice.

Yet another despicable chapter to this tragic saga is the FBI’s murder of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s friend in Florida. Within weeks after the Boston bombings, an unarmed Ibragim Todashev was shot by an FBI agent previously reprimanded for excessive force as an Oakland police officer. Initially the FBI lied about the circumstances, falsely claiming Todashev wielded a knife. The victim’s family is suing the FBI for $30 million. Even after admitting the lie about the victim brandishing a weapon, the Justice Department (overseeing the FBI) and a Florida prosecutor cleared the murdering FBI agent of any wrongdoing. The official government’s response that in effect supports such egregious acts of violence toward innocent civilians strongly indicates that the victim knew too much and the crime syndicate’s answer for people aware of the feds’ evildoing is to systematically assassinate those who might incriminate the federal government. Neutralizing perceived threats is standard operating procedure.

As an aside, the Tsarnaev brothers’ uncle who went public shortly after the bombings blasting his nephews as “losers” was married for several years in the 1990’s to the daughter of well-known CIA career officer Graham Fuller.

Fuller is the CIA architect for creating the Mujahedeen movement that fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, the same outfit whose leader Osama bin Laden emerged as the so called 9/11 al Qaeda mastermind. Fuller was a committed advocate for using Islamic fundamentalists as US proxy war mercenaries. Another coincidence that the CIA VIP’s son-in-law and his nephews came from Chechnya, a hotspot for separatist Muslim terrorist activity?

Once again the United States government appears to be at least complicit in another state crime against its own citizens... and then applying a media blackout to any real investigative reporting that would ask the dozens of questions to get to the truth. Even the defendant’s legal representation abandoned Tsarnaev’s right to a fair trial, and by co-opting to act in accordance with the government’s “no questions asked” implicitly applied gag-rule, it too is complicit in this heinous crime for neither seeking the truth nor any real justice for either the defendants or the scores of victims. The US crime cabal and its fabricated “war on terror” is perpetuated globally, both on US soil and around the world as an ongoing crime against humanity. The truth behind 9/11 is in-our-face, and so is the truth behind these Boston bombings. The criminals in Washington must pay for their crimes.

(Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.” It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field for more than a quarter century. He now concentrates on his writing and has a blog site at http://empireexposed. blogspot. com/. He is also a regular contributor to Global Research and a syndicated columnist at Veterans Today.

In case anyone is still paying attention to facts already established:

One of the many unexplained (at least not officially) anomalies of the persons claimed to have carried out the Boston Marathon bombings is the presence of key CIA figure in the direct family of the accused brothers.

Ruslan Tsarnaev, the outspoken uncle of the brothers was married to Samantha A. Fuller until 2004. Samantha’s father is Graham Fuller, the senior CIA person who was the architect the Afghan Islamic fundamentalist Mujahideen war against the Soviets. He is also involved in creating a global jihad network, presumably acting on behalf of CIA interests.

Ruslan Tsarnaev, who changed his name to Ruslan Tsarni, lives in a posh Washington DC suburb of Bethesda Maryland. He has worked in the past for companies tied to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton as well as a “consultant” in Kazakhstan with the State Department’s USAID which has been identified as a CIA front.

[1] Take it all in: The two brothers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, accused though never proven in a court of law to have been responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings, had an uncle, the same uncle who agreed to bury the remains of the one dead brother. This uncle was married to the daughter of Graham Fuller, one of the most important CIA architects of using Islamic Jihadists/terrorists against the USSR during the Cold War and after, throughout Central Asia, including Chechnya and Kazakhstan. Coincidence?

The Fuller CIA Link

The discovery of the connection between a very senior CIA official, Graham Fuller, to the uncle of the accused Boston bombers was more than a bit embarrassing for Fuller. He took what for a professional CIA agent was an extraordinary step of issuing a public denial. In an exclusive interview on what reportedly is a CIA-linked website, “Back Channel—Al-Monitor,” Fuller hurriedly denounced media links of his CIA connection to the bombers’ uncle: “… possible connections between Ruslan and the Agency through me are absurd.” [2] Fuller then went on to admit, “Samantha was married to Ruslan Tsarnaev (Tsarni) for 3-4 years…They also lived in our house in [Maryland] for a year or so…” [3]

Fuller went on to claim Ruslan was “homesick” for Chechnya, and that his English was “shaky,” yet after the Boston bombings, a very English-fluent Ruslan gave a press conference from his posh Maryland home denouncing his nephews.

The central question is who is Graham Fuller? The answer turns out to be that he was one of the most instrumental people inside the CIA during the 1980’s who convinced CIA Director Bill Casey and the Reagan Administration to recruit fundamentalist Muslim Salafists or Jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and elsewhere, train them in techniques of guerilla insurgency and send them against the Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. They were called Mujahideen.[4]One of the more famous of those Mujahideen was a young Saudi from a very wealthy family named Osama bin Laden.

Fuller was also the key CIA figure in convincing the Reagan Administration to tip the balance in the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war by using Israel to channel weapons to Iran in what became the Iran-Contra Affair. As well, in 1999, around the time his daughter Samantha and “Uncle” Ruslan Tsarni (aka Tsarnaev) lived at his home near Washington, Fuller, former Deputy Director of the CIA’s National Council on Intelligence, then a senior figure at the Pentagon and CIA-linked neo-conservative RAND corporation, advocated using Muslim forces to further US interests in Central Asia. He stated,

“The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against [the Russians]. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.” [5]

This is precisely what happened in Chechnya with hundreds of CIA-trained Jihadists and Al Qaeda fighters sent into Chechnya, Dagestan and other parts of the former Soviet Union, precisely where Uncle Ruslan and his two Tsarnaev nephews came to the USA from. Coincidence?

Is it mere “coincidence” that the uncle of the two young men accused of the Boston bombings was related in marriage to the CIA figure who advocated using the networks which were later named “Al Qaeda” across Central Asia including Chechnya where the Tsarnaev brothers had roots? The more independent researchers examine evidence around the Boston terror bombings, the more the official US Government version of events stinks.

Closeup pictures of obviously fake red paint designed to look like blood from a man whose legs were supposedly blown off of flesh to the bone, pictures of private security contractors carrying large backpacks at the direct bombing site after the bombing and chatting with police, reports of eyewitnesses of police over loudspeakers telling marathon runners there was a “terrorism exercise” taking place as a test that day. All these anomalies, combined with the CIA ties of Uncle Ruslan, present an incredible set of coincidences. It is time for an open and serious citizen commission of inquiry be formed to investigate.

In a future article we will look closely at the role of the same Graham Fuller in creation of what is rapidly becoming an Islamic fundamentalist dictatorship in Turkey and across the Islamic world. The Graham Fuller Ruslan Tsarni connection opens up what looks to be a very ugly can of worms. The two accused of the Boston bombings were never proven guilty. Their mother in Russia vehemently insists they were set up as patsies by the US Government to be blamed.[6]

It may be that carelessness somewhere exposed Graham Fuller and the tip of a very secret and very explosive network of international terror whose ties with Langley and the US Government are inadvertently coming into daylight in what might well be the most important revelation of destructive secret intelligence operations in modern history.

Graham Fuller, ‘methinks thou doth protest too much,’ when you proclaim absurd ties between the CIA and accused Boston bombers and that is drawing the spotlight of the civilized world to you and your accomplices and activities. Fuller’s earlier role in Turkey with another network of Salafist fundamentalist Islam will be our next view into the murky underworld of intelligence agencies and attempts to manipulate entire parts of the human population.

When the unexpectedly detailed P5+1 framework agreement with Iran was announced last Thursday, Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk made a bizarre comment. He said:

We should be a reviewing presence to see how this unfolds, which we all know is going to end with a mushroom cloud somewhere near Tehran.

This would be the result, in his opinion, of Israel having to go to war to “clean up the mess” made by Pindosi and European negotiators. A few days earlier, Walnuts McCain had expressed the wish that Israel “go rogue” and attack Iran in order to upend the Iran negotiations. It would have been one thing if such comments had come from backbench congressmen.

But Walnuts is a former GOP presidential nominee, one of his party’s most prominent foreign policy spokesmen, and Kirk is the co-sponsor of what was until recently the major Senate legislation intended to scuttle the Iran negotiations, and a leader in GOP “pro-Israel” circles. Yet neither remark sparked a repudiation, or even any reaction at all. They were what one expects from the GOP these days, recklessness about war and peace fused with a passion for Israel.

It was if all the diffuse sentiments which once fuelled Pindosi nationalism and militarism were concentrated into a tight stream and displaced onto Israel, turning the country into the fantasy surrogate of Pindosi hawks. The conservative belief in Pindosi exceptionalism is like Zionism, "Weekly Standard" editor Bill Kristol boasted. Kirk and McCain may know that Pindosis have little enthusiasm for another Mideast war; the Pindo Army understands perfectly well that no occupation of Iran could be sustained, and that Pindostan would have zero international support if it tried. But no matter, they have Israel.

Even 20 years ago, some Republican senator would have signalled some collegial disagreement with Kirk and McCain. A Bob Dole or Dick Lugar or a Mark Hatfield would have let on that this sentiment wasn’t the only opinion in the party. Now if there are any who dissent, they dare not speak. Benjamin Netanyahu has become the symbolic leader of the GOP, and even he is probably not as aggressive as most in the party would like him to be.

How did this transformation occur? How did the party of Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan come to this? The NYT published two recent pieces exploring this subject. The first, by Peter Baker, takes off from observing Jeb Bush very quickly disassociating himself from former Sec State James Baker’s moderate speech at J Street; the second, by Eric Lipton, explored the rapid growth in ties between hawkish pro-Israel donors and the Republican Party.

Baker’s piece fills out the basics: the top realist foreign policy voices of the 1980s and 1990s GOP, Baker, Powell and Scowcroft, have no influence anymore. Jeb Bush threw James Baker under the bus at the first squawk from Sheldon Adelson; support for the Israeli right has become a Republican litmus test. To explain this, Baker mentions the new donors, the rise of right-wing evangelicals within the party, the vague sense emerging from 9/11 that USrael faced the same enemy in Islamic terrorism, and the pro-Israeli leadership of Bush 43, who repudiated the foreign policy realism of his father.

Lipton focuses on the new money stream. He shows that Adelson, Paul Singer, and other right-wing pro-Israel donors, their spending unleashed by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, have pushed the GOP past the Democrats as recipients of “pro-Israel” PAC money.

He uncovers some fairly shocking facts, such as the rapid infusion of “pro-Israel” funds into Arkansas freshman senator Tom Cotton’s campaigns. This detailed reporting about Israel-related money in a widely read centrist publication is an important and welcome development. Until recently, it was subject hidden in whisper and awkward euphemism, as when two election cycles ago, retired general and possible presidential candidate Wesley Clark referred to “New York money people” pushing for war with Iran. Clark had to be walked through an apology with the assistance of Abe Foxman. But important as the finance angle is, the subject has other important dimensions. If Sheldon Adelson and Paul Singer had tried to purchase the Mideast policy of the Republican Party 20 or 30 years ago, they would have failed, even under the new campaign finance rules.

I am not persuaded by the evangelical argument. My rough sense is that Christan Zionism may have peaked 15 years ago within the evangelical movement. Increasingly, there are prominent evangelical voices calling for justice in Israel and Plastelina. In any case, evangelicals hardly make up a decisive segment of the Republican electorate. But the ground for Singer and Adelson and their cohorts has been prepared over 20 years. Several events from the 1990s were critical in the process.

During the Reaganite 1980s, Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak were probably Pindostan’s most popular media conservatives. Neither was a big Israel backer, though Buchanan had been earlier in his career. Both saw Mideast conflicts through the lens of those in the Pindosi foreign policy establishment who knew the region. Israel had done deep wrongs to the Plastelinans, which could and should be practically addressed. Pindostan had profound strategic needs to get along with the Arab world.

But in a sustained and fairly well-documented strike, the neocon media establishment began a campaign against Buchanan, who had been far more polemical about Israel than Novak. Buchanan survived the attacks but they damaged his standing as a Republican. Younger activists got the message that if you were ambitious about advancing in the conservative movement, better just leave the Israel subject alone, or better still, become a passionate Zionist. The attacks took someone who used to be at the core of the conservative polemic industry and essentially neutralized him. Buchanan eventually left the GOP, but the party was not better for it.

Another step in setting the stage for Adelson and Singer was Rupert Murdoch’s starting and funding of "The Weekly Standard," perhaps the most successful political magazine in history. Before the "Standard," "National Review" was the most important conservative magazine, pro-Israel but hardly obsessively so, and open to an array of perspectives.

James Burnham, the magazine’s principal strategic thinker through the 1970s, was highly skeptical of the USrael alliance. But by the 1990s, Burnham was dead and "National Review" had a wealthy competitor, one which could count on a reported $3m/yr subsidy from Murdoch, while Buckley had labored for years to keep "National Review" afloat with four- and five-figure donations. Leading neocons, including the editors of the "Standard," played the anti-Semite card against key "National Review" figures, aggressively in the case of Joseph Sobran, with more subtlety in the cases of John O’Sullivan and Richard Neuhaus. By the late 1990s, "National Review" had capitulated, becoming indistinguishable from "Commentary" or "The Weekly Standard" on the Mideast and most other issues.

One should also mention the proliferation of hawkish pro-Israel neocon think-tanks propaganda mills. There is the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Hudson Institute, AEI, and dozens of others. If you are conservative, interested in foreign policy, and want a think-tank job in DC, being hawkishly pro-Israel is the way to go. Pro-Israel hawks have done more in 20 years than create a fund-raising apparatus designed to impose pro-Israel litmus tests upon Republican politicians. They have forged an entire ideological party inside the Beltway, comprised of think-tank staffers and ideological journalists, all of whom can be reliably counted on to advocate for some version of a right-wing Israeli perspective whenever circumstances require it. These forces weren’t in place when Bush 41 faced off against Yitzhak Shamir over Israeli settlements in 1991, but they rule in Republican circles now.

I am pessimistic about the Republican party’s short term prospects to overcome and reverse this takeover, but not about the issue overall. All my senses tell me that Obama, and what remains of a centrist and liberal foreign policy establishment, will succeed in persuading the country that the deal with Iran is a large net-plus for Pindosi interests. It helps enormously that what was agreed upon in Lausanne seems to have surpassed expectations, which has been remarked upon by quite a few observers who expected far less.

Republican politicians will move on to other subjects if they sense the public is not with them in opposing the Iran deal, Sheldon Adelson notwithstanding. In the medium term, the defeat of Mark Kirk next year, which is altogether possible, would signal that blind obeisance to a foreign country can be a loser politically.

Finally, there are underlying dynamics in the Middle East, which all of Sheldon Adelson’s money cannot overcome. Most important is that Iran has clearly become one of the more stable, modern, and democratic countries in the region. Another is that Israel is becoming a harder sell to Pindosis. As David Shulman put it in the New York Review of Books:

What really counts is that the Israeli electorate is still dominated by hyper-nationalist, in some cases proto-fascist, figures. It is in no way inclined to make peace.

Information flows quite freely in the age of the Internet, and these Mideast realities are slowly seeping into the Pindosi consciousness. The same factors which now make divestment from companies doing business with Israel an important issue on many Pindosi college campuses cannot forever be ignored by a large political party competing for power in a free society. The process, however, is going to take a while.

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Oscar Wilde

"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

Harold Pinter

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless... while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

Chickenhawks Galore

Peace

"A man of peace is not a pacifist; a man of peace is simply a pool of silence. He pulsates a new kind of energy into the world, he sings a new song. He lives in a totally new way his very way of live is that of grace, that of prayer, that of compassion. Whomsoever he touches, he creates more love-energy. The man of peace is creative. He is not against war, because to be against anything is to be at war. He is not against war; he simply understands why war exists. And out of that understanding he becomes peaceful. Only when there are many people who are pools of peace, silence, understanding, will the war disappear."